Ask most people what they want in a salesperson, and you might think you’d hear things like “good follow up and customer service,” but in reality, most people want is an honest salesperson who doesn’t pull any punches. Find that in your salespeople, and your bottom line could look much better.

Teach the Basic Skills

Teach your salespeople some basic reliability skills, like trust, dependability, better communication, building relationships, and pleasing the customer. However, remember that to be successful, you simply can’t please everyone. Your best salespeople should recognize this, and learn how to move on from customers they can’t close. They should never change their core beliefs or values just to make a sale, and they should never take rejection personally.

Build up Confidence

Honesty in your salespeople builds their confidence, too. That helps them forge even stronger relationships with their clients, because they know that their salesperson will tell them the truth, even if it costs them the sale. If the product doesn’t truly fit the clients’ needs, they should tell them with confidence that they may lose that sale, but they’ll gain the trust of the client, and future sales will certainly come from that. If you honestly don’t think you can help your client, offer them an alternative, even from another vendor. Your customer will respect your honesty, and will certainly recommend you to others, a win-win for your business. If you don’t walk away from a deal that really doesn’t fit your client, you’ll end up with hard feelings and a bad reputation when the deal shows how weak it really is.

If you look around at your most successful competitors and look at their methods, you’ll probably find that the superstar salespeople they use are straightforward and honest with their clients. You can learn from these top sellers and their practices, and pass them on to your own salespeople. When you build your reputation on honesty above all else, you’ll earn the respect of your customers, and you’ll build a solid reputation as a company that really takes care of its’ clients, and that’s a wonderful reputation to have in any business.